Daily Punch 2-13-17 Excommunicate negative feat for DnD 5e

I have a modest proposal. DnD 5e is feat poor. I’d like to propose that DnD 5e is feat poor. To help with this, i’d like to propose the idea of Negative Feats. These feats hurt a character is some way, but allow the character to take an additional feat or gain two abilities points at first level. This has the potential to spin out of control quickly, but if carefully managed, players will be able to take power bonuses at first level at the bonus of character background building and expense of in game penalty. Here is the first one I propose.

Excommunicate

You have left your church. This decisions may have been yours alone, mutual, or your may have been forced to leave the church. But, in any case, that church and its associated gods no longer look upon you with favor. Non-player characters now treat your with as much spurn as they can muster in the situation. In civil situations, you will be ostracized as much as possible. In combat situations, clerics of the church will not and can not heal you. If provoked, members of the church will attack. Chose an alignment (LN, N, LG, G, or CG). Members of that alignment can not heal you, gods of those alignments disdain you, and you can not receive any healing or positive benefits from spells or other abilities from clerics or gods of those alignments. Damaging spells from those alignments will still work against you however. Even spells that would provide a mixed benefit such as a damaging spell that increase your AC or damage that allows you to activate an ability only provide the negative aspect of the spell and do not activate any of your abilities.

Interesting concept. As you say there are tons of opportunities for broken here. For instance as long as you made sure the party healer was a different alignment you’d mostly be ok.

Fluffwise what would you do that would make bards clerics and Druids of NG alignment refuse to heal you but wouldn’t bother LG or CG folks?

I think I’d be more comfortable (but still concerned) with something like: “Forsaken by the gods of nature and man- no spell that appears on the cleric or Druid list nor any ability granted by the cleric or Druid class, functions on you in any positive way. Spells or abilities that deal damage or apply harmful effects work on you as normal. If a spell or ability has both harmful and helpful effects only the harmful ones effect you.”